marketing strategies Archives

Social Media Tools: Tips for Using Them Efficiently

February 4, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media tools can be very beneficial to your campaigns, but in order for them to work, you need to be using them efficiently.

We are all aware of the vast buffet of social media management and marketing tools at our disposal. And if you have ever taken part in a social media webinar, you will have undoubtedly heard questions asking what the best tools are, or which tools an individual should be using to maximize returns on a program. Frankly, answers to questions like these are useless if you do not understand both the benefits of a given tool, and which social media tools compliment others and serve to create a fully functional, highly versatile set that can be used to execute successul social media programs.

Below are a few tips that can help you narrow your search when looking for the right tools for a program, and a few things to keep in mind when using these tools or dashboards to maximize the efficiency of your campaigns.

Do Your Research

Perhaps the most detrimental mistake marketers make when choosing a platform on which to run social media programs is forgetting to do their research. We all know about social media management and CRM dashboards like HootSuite, Argyle and Jugnoo, but we may forget to take the time to research them. Each of these tools has its own benefits and drawbacks. And while they may all be similar in terms of what they offer, each one touts a different USP (unique selling proposition). So, without a set of defined goals for a given program, you can never be certain about which dashboard is right for you. And, more importantly, without understanding how these tools differ, you might be choosing the wrong one.

So take the time and do your research to ensure that when choosing a tool, you know exactly what it offers, and what it does not. What it’s missing is going to be extremely important to helping you with the next tip.

Make Sure Your Tools Are Complimentary

As marketers, we know that time is an invaluable asset (despite all of our best efforts to assign a value to it). As such, wasting time is one of the worst things we can do. So how do we avoid wasting time when it comes to social media management? We make sure that everything we do is well thought out, well researched and covers all the bases without any redundancies.

This comes back to the last point made above: find out what each tool is missing. You might find that HootSuite is your top choice for a social media CRM dashboard. Great! But you might also find that you need access to a Pinterest management platform, an add-on that is not yet available to HootSuite users. Instead of going out and finding another dashboard with all of the same functionality as HootSuite that includes Pinterest, either make the switch entirely to the new CRM tool, or find another stand alone product for Pinterest.

Your tools should not be creating redundancies. For marketers – and agencies in particular – managing multiple accounts is difficult enough as it is. You do not need to add another degree of confusion by overlapping your work. In doing so, you run the risk of being half as productive and taking twice as much time. Ask anyone – economist or otherwise – if that makes sense from a business perspective. The answer will always be no.

Have a Strategy in Place Before You Start

Each of these tips builds off the last. Here, we are coming back to an old favorite of ours: strategy. When it comes to social media management, strategy is the key to success. This applies on the macro level when looking at the program as a whole, and the micro level when looking at something like, say, the tools you are using.

We noted above how one of the keys to success is going to be research. The second key to success is alignment. There should be configured linearity to your program, and your social media tools should fit in with that. While you might find something new that you just need to have, figure out how it works in with your strategy first. If it is a reporting tool, like SocialBro, look at the strategies you have in place and see if this can organically work itself in. If not, do not wate your time. If it does, then go for it! The key to success with social media marketing is knowing exactly in which direction you are heading, and taking calculated steps to get there. Playing it by ear, so to speak, will cost you time, efficiency and ultimately money. So plan ahead for best results.

What are your favorite tools to use for social media marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Twitter Marketing for the Super Bowl

February 1, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter marketing will be a major part of Super Bowl ads this weekend.

Twitter has been growing in popularity for brands for quite a while now. More and more, we see Twitter marketing incorporated into television ads or TV programs with custom hashtags added to the bottom of a television screen. Well, it looks like this trend in Twitter marketing is catching on, and that is clear with Twitter’s key role in this year’s Super Bowl.

According to a report on CNBC, roughly fifty percent of this year’s Super Bowl ads will feature a hashtag, incorporating Twitter marketing and customer engagement into a multi-million dollar TV spot. Considering there were only a few hashtags last year, and only one two years ago, that’s pretty impressive. Furthermore, when you take into account the fact that brands are paying upwards of $3 million (much more in some cases) for a few seconds of TV space during the most-watched TV event of the year, it is no wonder they are trying to keep the engagement going with a hashtag. This invites viewers to reach out to the brand after the commercial has aired, and once a dialogue is opened, the possibilities are virtually endless.

Audi is a prime example of the integration of Twitter marketing. Below is the video for their Super Bowl spot this year (for which they spent roughly $4 million!) which features the hashtag #BraveryWins at the very end:

What’s more, Twitter is expecting this to be one of the most active periods they have ever experienced. The number of tweets is expected to be in the thousands…per second! This is not surprising considering some of the statistics revealed in the NM Incite and Nielsen study conducted in 2012. Below are a few of the astounding findings from the study with regards to Twitter marketing as it relates to television:

41% of tablet owners and 38% of smartphone owners use their device daily while in front of their TV screen.
During June 2012, a third of active Twitter users tweeted about TV-related content, an increase of 27 percent from the beginning of the year.
Nearly a quarter of people aged 18-34 use social media to comment on what they like/dislike about a storyline while watching TV.
Adults aged 35-44 are the most likely to discuss television programming with their social connections.
23% of mobile users and 35% of tablet users have looked up information related to the TV program being watched.

With numbers like that, it is not hard to understand why brands are turning to Twitter when it comes to second-phase marketing in this year’s Super Bowl.

How do you interpret this major change in Super Bowl and Twitter marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

LinkedIn Tips: Maximize Your LinkedIn Company Page

January 31, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Having a LinkedIn company page is a great place to connect with professionals. But to optimize your return on the time spent on LinkedIn, you should optimize your company page first.

Optimizing your LinkedIn company page should be approached from two avenues. First, you should be optimizing all of the sections at your avail in order to showcase as much as possible about your company. Second, you should be taking advantage of the SEO capabilities offered on a LinkedIn company page in order to increase your brand’s exposure on search engines.

Below is a set of tips that should help you do both of these things and get the most out of your LinkedIn company page.

1. Fill Out Every Section

Contrary to a Facebook brand page, which has a limited number of tabs from which to work when you first get started, a LinkedIn company page provides you with tabs for a corporate overview, careers offered at the company and products and services you offer. Where there is a little bit of a downside is that a LinkedIn company page is essentially a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) platform. There is little in the way of add-ons when it comes to a LinkedIn company page. But that’s ok! There is plenty you can take advantage of on the basic page layout.

First, you will want to fill out every section on the page. Add your logos and banners and, more importantly, link them to your site! Add your headquarters and phone numbers. Boast all of your specialties and link your most lucrative groups. Every little bit you can add to your LinkedIn company page shows that much more about your company. And the more transparent you are, the easier it will be for visitors to see your expertise and why your company is the best one for the job.

This also applies to your products and services. Your banners should link to your website. And you should definitely have banners on each page! There is not much in the way of creative leeway on a LinkedIn company page, and this is one of the few areas where you can showcase your brand visually. So take advantage of it.

2. Link Everything!

This ties in closely with your SEO efforts through LinkedIn as well. You will want to link every one of your external profiles and employees to your LinkedIn company page in order to increase your exposure. While having a LinkedIn company page is all well and and good, if it is simply relegated to the annals of the 200 million-person social network, it is not doing you much good. If, however, it is linked to your profile, all of your employees’ profiles, your website and all of your other social networks, then you stand a much better chance of having your company found.

Take advantage of the sections on your LinkedIn company pages where you can link something- be it a website, a blog article, an employee or a social network.

3. Optimize Your LinkedIn Company Page for SEO

Here is where you can use your LinkedIn company page to really drive traffic and get found. SEO is still one of the best ways to get your name out there, and there are quite a few tips and tricks you can use to reap the benefits of SEO through LinkedIn.

First, we reiterate the previous point: make sure to link your banners and sections. Links are still the best way to increase your SERPs (search engine ranking positions) and there are plenty of areas on a LinkedIn company page that can help you do this.

Second, encourage your staff to add anchor text to both the company page and their own profiles. Anchor text is another huge asset when it comes to SEO, and there are plenty of areas where links can be designed as anchor text on your page.

Third, recommendations are a great way to boost your page’s rankings. The recommendations feature on LinkedIn is great for both showcasing your skills and getting found. The skills and areas of expertise you insert into your profile and page should be written in the form of meta tags, and for each recommendation your page increases in authority. The greater your authority, the higher your rankings. So remember to go out and ask for recommendations from your network – these will help with your SEO on LinkedIn.

Lastly, update your page regularly with news and content. Whether it is sharing articles or brief synopses of your blog posts with links, anything you add to your page will help with your SEO. Your LinkedIn feed is like a pseudo blog within the social network, so take advantage of this feature and post content whenever you can in order to reap the benefits that come with it.

How do you use LinkedIn for your business? Do you already employ any of these tips for SEO when it comes to your LinkedIn company page? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Increase Clicks on Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]

January 30, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter is a great tool for driving traffic, but how can you structure your strategy to get more clicks?

There are half a billion accounts on Twitter. Of those accounts, roughly a third are regularly active and clicking away on tweets and links as they come up on Twitter feeds. It is no secret that Twitter is an excellent tool for driving social referrals, but how are you able to structure your strategy properly in order to ensure that people are actually clicking on your links?

Dan Zarrella, Social Media Scientist at HubSpot, has conducted a number of studies and has found that there are a few aspects of note when it comes to certain links and tweets being retweeted and others disappearing into the Twittersphere oblivion. As marketers, our ultimate goal in using social media is to build clout and drive new traffic from our social channels. In order to do that, our strategies need to incorporate proven data so that we can justify our courses of action. With some of the data put forth by Zarrella in the infographic below, we can surely see some improved numbers when it comes to our Twitter marketing efforts.

Have a look at the infographic and let us know which data you found most surprising. Is there something you were doing that the data suggested might not be working? Is there something new you are going to try? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Twitter Marketing with Vine Integration

January 29, 2013/by Corey Padveen

With the newly integrated Vine app on Twitter, there are new Twitter marketing capabilities that you can leverage for your business.

Recently, Twitter acquired Vine, a video sharing social network that allows users to create six-second clips and post them to their accounts. Twitter marketing has for some time been relatively stagnant. The network was late to the photo sharing game (despite offering Instagram half a billion dollars prior to the Facebook acquisition) and, some could argue, missed the boat entirely with regards to becoming an industry leader in the realm of photo sharing. That said, people still love sharing content, and if YouTube and Instagram have taught us anything, it is that people love sharing visual and video content. Enter Vine.

Twitter marketing took a major step forward last week with the announcement that they had acquired the video sharing social network. So how can you leverage Vine in your Twitter marketing to get the most out of it? Take a look at the tips below to see how you can use Vine with your Twitter marketing efforts.

Get Creative!

Yes, you are only given six seconds to showcase your stuff; but that six seconds can mean making a pretty bold statement in the eyes of potential clients on Twitter. Using the editing capabilities afforded by Vine, you can turn your Twitter marketing into a visual wonder. Six seconds is actually a blessing in disguise. If we have learned one thing from YouTube (and it’s analytics) it is that people tend to get bored. If you are not engaging an audience for the entirety of your video, they will almost surely drop off towards the latter bit. The beauty of these six seconds on Vine is that you would be hard pressed to get someone to turn off your video before the six seconds is up. So get creative and leave an impression with your Vine video!

Treat Your Video Like a Commercial

Dan Zarrella, Social Media Scientist at HubSpot claims that Twitter is a broadcast medium. Do not be confused with conventional forms of broadcast media – Twitter is not a venue in which to solely tout your skills. Granted, through engagement and responses, Twitter can be an excellent channel to drive traffic to your website or a squeeze page – more so than most other social networks – but Twitter marketing needs to be approached strategically, and Vine adds an entirely new element to the world of Twitter marketing. Using Vine’s capabilities, Twitter can be a realm in which a six second commercial for your brand is inexpensive and effective. As noted above, creativity is king when it comes to Vine. And if you can be creative in six seconds while engaging an audience and driving new traffic to your site, then you have mastered Twitter marketing using Vine. This is the new challenge afforded by the integration of Vine – creativity is hard enough without restrictions like time. So it is going to be the great marketing minds that put forth viable and successful Twitter marketing campaigns using Vine.

What do you think of the newest weapon in the Twitter marketing arsenal? Do you plan on integrating Vine into your social media marketing efforts? How? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Fun Facts and Stats

January 28, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is constantly evolving and at shockingly high rates; these numbers prove that.

Over the course of the last few years, social media has made its way into virtually every aspect of our lives. As such, in this short period of time we have seen some unprecedented numbers when it comes to social media. Below are a few fun facts and figures as they relate to social media as a whole and by network.

Social Media

Roughly one third of bloggers are mothers.
There are more devices connected to the Internet than there are people on Earth.
40% of people spend more time socializing on social networks than they do face-to-face.
AllTwitter reports that every minute of the day:
- 100,000 tweets are sent.
- Over 680,000 pieces of content are shared on Facebook.
- 2 million queries are made on Google.
- 3,600 photos are shared on Instagram.
- Over $270,000 is spent online by consumers.
22.5% of time spent online is spent on social media networks.
70% of adults on social networks shop online.
53% of adults on social networks follow a brand.
57% of marketers say they have acquired a customer as a result of blogging.
44% of marketers say they have acquired a customer from Twitter.
The use of social media has increased more than 350% since June 2006.
65% of traffic on Pinterest is from the United States.
Blogs increase web traffic by 55% for companies.
35% of the comments on brand Facebook Pages are compliments.
Over half of all mobile searches lead to a purchase.
90% of mobile searches lead to some sort of action.

Facebook

Facebook users combined spend over 10.5 billion minutres on the social media network every day.
Only half of all Facebook users have over 100 friends.
People spend over twice as much time on Facebook as they do on Google every month.
AllFacebook reports that in an analysis of over 60 Facebook marketing campaigns, 49 percent reported a return on investment of more than five times, while 70 percent had a return on investment greater than three times.
Less than 0.5% of Facebook users engage with the brands they are fans of in a given week.
20% of Facebook have made a purchase as a result of an ad or post they saw on the social network.
Half of all smartphones are connecting to Facebook every hour of every day.

Twitter

There are over half a billion registered accounts on Twitter but only 140 million active users.
15% of adults user Twitter.
29% of the Twitter user base is between the ages of 18-29, the largest demographic on the network.
Users aged 30-49 represent 14% of people on Twitter and 50-64, 9%.
The average number of followers for any Twitter user is 27.
A quarter of all Twitter accounts have no followers.
40% of Twitter accounts have never sent a tweet.
79% of Twitter users are more likely to recommend a brand they follow.
67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from a brand they follow.
57% of businesses that use social media use Twitter.

LinkedIn

61% of LinkedIn users use the social media network as their primary professional networking site.
81% of LinkedIn users belong to at least one group.
82% of users are aware of ads available on LinkedIn.
60% of users on LinkedIn have clicked on an ad feature on the site.
90% of surveyed LinkedIn users find the site to be helpful.
61% of LinkedIn users are registered for the free version of the network.

Mobile

10% of Internet usage worldwide is now done via mobile smartphones.
Roughly one quarter of the world’s 4 billion mobile devices are smartphones.
Nearly 8% of web traffic in the United States is mobile traffic.
29% of mobile users are willing to scan mobile codes (i.e. QR codes) to receive specials and promotions.
39% of consumers who leave a store without making a purchase are influenced by mobile.
91% of mobile access to the web is done for social networking purposes.
Over one third of Facebook users and half of Twitter users access the social networks via their mobile devices.
QR code scans increased 300% year over year from 2010 to 2011.
73% of smartphone users access social networks using mobile apps at least once per day.
One in ten dollars spent on e-commerce in the United States is done on mobile devices.
87% of the world’s population subscribes to a mobile device.

Social Media for Business

27% of small and 34% of medium businesses are using social media for business (expected to reach over 75% in the next three years).
MarketingMag reports that 25% of SMBs have no strategy and only 28% of small and 24% of medium businesses measure their ROI of social media activity.
83% of socially savvy consumers have walked away from a purchase in the past year after a negative customer service experience – compared with 49% of everyone else.
Of businesses using social media, 80% are using it to monitor and extract data related to competitors.
Only 44% of customer questions on twitter are answered within 24 hours.
56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored – that’s much too high!
55% of consumers share their purchases socially on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites.
59% of Pinterest users have purchased an item they saw on the site.
33% of Facebook users have purcahsed an item they saw on their news feed or a friend’s wall.
79% of Pinterest users are more likely to purchase items they’ve seen on Pinterest.
64% of Facebook users have clicked on a Facebook ad.
87% of the Fortune 100 now use social media – with Twitter being the most popular social media network.
75% of the Fortune 100 are on Facebook.
50% of Fortune 100 companies have a Google+ account.
25% of Fortune 100 companies have a Pinterest account.
Facebook is the number one social marketing tool for brands at 83%.
On average companies respond to only 30% of social media fans’ feedback.
40% of young workers rate access to social media at work above receiving a higher salary!
Over 50% of workers aged over 50 use social media every day at work.
94% of corporates use social media and 85% say it’s given their business more exposure.
74% of brand marketers saw an increase in website traffic after investing just 6 hours per week on social media.
65% of corporate marketers use social media to gain market intelligence.
70% of brands ignore complaints on Twitter.
83% of people who complained on Twitter loved the response from those companies that did make the effort.
Only 26% of businesses regularly include a call to action in their tweets.
42% of marketers believe Facebook is critical or important to their business.
Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing.
80% of US social network users prefer to connect to brands through Facebook.
Facebook is responsible for 86% of social referrals, Pinterest 11% and Twitter 3%.
Over 25% of Twitter users would consider contacting a business via the platform.
39% of companies do not track their social media responses at all, and 55% ignore all customer feedback on Twitter and Facebook, largely because they have no process in place to respond.

That’s a ton of information! Social media is growing more and more important to business every year. We are still at a stage where entry barriers are low and the benefits of using social media for your business are notable and impressive. The proof is in the numbers! Which of these statistics did you find to be the most impressive? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

SEO Demystified: Penguin and Panda [INFOGRAPHIC]

January 25, 2013/by Corey Padveen

For SEO, Google’s Penguin and Panda updates meant a lot…but what did they mean?

SEO has long been one of, if not the most important element when it comes to getting found online. For years, Google has been modifying and tweaking it’s coveted algorithm. In 2012, Penguin and Panda were added to the mix, and for a moment, the world stood still.

Penguin and Panda were two of the largest – and most public – changes to the Google algorithm to date. Effectively, they brought about a new era to content. Unlike the golden ages of the past where keywords were king, Google’s updates put a lot more weight on the quality of content as opposed to, well, it’s contents. SEO is a complicated beast, and not everyone grasps exactly what it is, how it works, or how to do it. That is why firms charge thousands of dollars a year for successful campaigns. Well, this great infographic demystifies the Penguin and Panda elements of the Google algorithm, and puts some SEO elements in perspective. SEO is important, and in order to understand how to optimize, you have to first understand how the engines – like Google – work.

Have a look at the infographic below and let us know how you plan to modify, or have modified your SEO strategies with the Penguin and Panda updates in place. Did you even have to make any changes? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Marketing Myopia: The Danger of Nearsightedness

January 24, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media marketing is an expansive tool, and ignoring it can mean a brand’s demise; and it can mean it much sooner than they think.

First of all, what is marketing myopia? The term, coined by Theodore Levitt in a Harvard Business Review article in 1960, refers to a company’s complacency when it reaches a certain stature.

Effectively, it suggests that companies in growth industries will stop innovating when they reach a certain threshold, and simply ride the wave of success, assuming research and development cannot benefit the company in any way. Levitt explains that, eventually, a company focuses solely on the product and not on the customer.

This myopic and nearsighted view results in lowered barriers to entry, and new companies with a focus on innovation taking charge. The results to the once dominant brands are detrimental, and in many cases, it means their demise.

So how does marketing myopia fit in with social media marketing?

We posted an article about a social media marketing study conducted by MIT and Deloitte. In the study, findings show that brands have three years to get social. Despite these conclusions, only 18% of brands currently feel that social media is essential to business success. This is where marketing myopia fits in to social media marketing.

Many (in fact, most) major players in the largest industries today feel as though the path that led to their current stature is the undisputed path to success. Thus, social media marketing would add little if anything to further success. This mentality, according to Levitt, is what led to the decline (and near disappearance) of the railroad and film industries in the early part of the 20th century. An unwillingness to adopt new techniques and modify strategies can do nothing but hurt a brand.

The MIT-Deloitte study explained the hesitation by big brands to adopt social media marketing as a somewhat paradoxical phenomenon.

In economics, first mover advantage is defined as the advantage gained by the initial occupant of a market segment. Therefore, based on this theory, the early adopters of social media marketing stand to benefit the most. Yet, the study showed that many major brands refuse to move into this new medium without proven results. This is completely counter-intuitive, particularly when companies like IBM and Dell have found such great success using social media marketing after years of research and testing.

As we have noted, brands do not have long before social media marketing becomes as integral a part of every day business as the most essential of departments. By neglecting social in its incipience, brands stand to lose much more than first mover advantage. The numbers show it: companies can simply not afford to overlook social media marketing.

What are your thoughts on social media marketing myopia? Do you believe social media is on its way to being a cornerstone of successul business (if it is not already)? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media is a Must for Businesses

January 23, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is crucial to the success of any business, and this recent study by MIT and Deloitte shows exactly why…in numbers!

Three years. That is the time frame this study has given for businesses to adopt social media. For many of us, social media for business is a no-brainer. The advantages far outweigh the costs, and the returns are both measurable and remarkable. So why are so many still hesitant when it comes to adopting social media as a cornerstone of their business?

There is always the argument that due to the medium’s incipience, there has not been a chance for longitudinal studies to be conducted, and therefore its viability can be questioned. While this holds true for most media, social is in a class of its own. On a micro level, we can examine Pinterest. Over 1,500% growth in traffic over the last year! Pinterest is just another juggernaut on the unstoppable train that is social media for business, and finally a study shows that.

The study conducted by MIT and Deloitte show that social is present in all facets of business, it proves to be an excellent resource for numerous departments, and yet only 18% of businesses have incorporated social media fully into their strategies. Well, that might change as a result of their findings. Three years is the calculated deadline for businesses to go social. Missing the proverbial social media boat can cost businesses significantly. Take a look at the video below to see why that is the case when it comes to social media for business.

Do you agree with the study’s findings? How long would you say it will take for social to be among the most important aspects of successful business strategies (if it isn’t already)? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Marketing vs. Classic Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]

January 22, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media marketing presents a number of difference when compared to classic forms of marketing.

What are some of the differences when it comes to social media marketing as compared to classic marketing? For decades, marketing made small adjustments, but the basic concepts remained the same. A formula was developed and executed by marketers in nearly every industry. Sure, there were some subtle differences from one industry to the next, but the core concepts remained intact. Social media marketing entered the game a few years ago, and marketing as a field saw some drastic changes that it had never seen before.

The infographic below details some of these changes and highlights how social media marketing is different in almost every way from conventional forms of marketing. It might be hard to imagine, but in each of the ten fields below it is clear that one’s approach to a social media marketing strategy must be very, if not completely different from an approach to classic marketing.

Have a look at the infographic and let us know: did you think there was this much of a difference between the executions of classic marketing versus social media marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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